Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review

Star Wars isn’t so much a film series now as it is an ideology, a foundation of pop culture consciousness. It has invaded everything from Subway adverts to university courses. When people think of pop culture and its referential symbioses, they think of Star Wars. We generally are more likely to recognise a Han Solo one-liner than a couplet from Hamlet, and we will identify John Williams’s iconic ‘Imperial March’ score over a Beethoven symphony. The Force Awakens isn’t just the biggest film release of the year; it’s a titanic incident in the still fledgling history of popular entertainment. There are anecdotes of cheers, laughter and audible anguish accompanying many screenings, purely based on the associative memories of joy and obsession billions share for the original trilogy, only intensified by the desperation for something great again after the universally derided prequels. It’s easy to forget that there’s a film embedded in the event.

In my opinion there are two reasons why the original trilogy is so popular; and in juxtaposition why the prequels failed so spectacularly. Firstly, Star Wars isn’t Science-Fiction. Lucas was inspired by the exhilarating pulpishness of John Ford Westerns and Akira Kurosawa Samurai epics; A New Hope’s plot is explicitly ripped from Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, while the series’s fetishism for desolate desert planets evokes homage to Western sensibilities. Lucas created an old-fashioned adventure film that merely happened to be set in space, discarding the political and philosophical conceptualism that gentrified 60s and 70s Science Fiction in the name of fun. The Phantom Menace and its successors strived to balance the political sophistication of Huxley or Dick with the inoffensive fantasy of the originals and they purported a clunky, barely watchable mess. Secondly, the original trilogy is almost indomitably bland; which I mean in the nicest possible way. It’s unapologetically black-and-white; there are the good guys, and there are the bad guys; there’s no space for moral ambiguity because that would, in all sincerity, undermine the point of Star Wars. My dad always says that he dislikes stories which inhabit ethical grey areas because he enjoys knowing categorically who to root for. Moral ambiguity makes us question character motivations which subsequently reminds us of reality and the seemingly inconsequential but morally difficult decisions and interactions we confront daily. Star Wars is Star Wars because it’s comfortably unreality, carrying the abject certainty that accompanies the best escapist fantasy. The prequels, again, aimed for narrative intricacy and character depth and, again, fell well short.

The Force Awakens, for better and worse, returns the series to its simplistic origins. Oscar Isaac’s “best damn pilot in the galaxy” Poe Dameron is basically just the damn best pilot in the galaxy; John Boyega’s Finn is a renounced Stormtrooper – which would suggest some form of spiritual struggle – but is unequivocally a good guy; Daisy Ridley’s Rey is the prototypical incorruptible paragon of decency, even more so than Princess Leia. There’s little to sink your teeth into, but that’d be missing the point. For all they’re underdeveloped they’re eminently likable and charming, arguably even more so than the original trio. They share an authentic chemistry, with plenty of emotional involvement and humour in the writing to support them. Equally plain is the light/dark bipolarity. The Rebel Alliance is expectedly virtuous, while the First Order are even more determinedly evil than the Empire. Conglomerating fascistic symbolism and rhetoric (terms like “non-conformity” are routinely tossed around) from across various actual ideologues and dictatorships, Abrams implicitly reveals that these guys aren’t especially nice. One scene featuring a speech from Domnhall Gleeson’s vehement General is so brazenly emblematic of a Nazi hate-rally that the Third Reich should find it libellous for copyright infringement. But hey it works, you really do hate them.

Abrams is the major success story, and his choice of using film over digital is vindicated. Sweeping vistas and gorgeous locations take the occasional front-seat, but his visceral physicality is observable throughout, whether it’s a muddy gunfight among ancient ruins prompted by penetrating close-ups or roller-coaster tracking shots, or in the venerating framing of old heroes from previous films, he masterfully dictates both action and exposition. The battle scenes are thrilling and immersive while the quiet moments are dramatic and absorbing; the mark of a truly excellent blockbuster director is one who finds as much pleasure in working the dialogue-heavy instances as the explosion-heavy ones, and Abrams absolutely nails it. This is furiously entertaining filmmaking; fast, funny and harmoniously self-defined, with just the right element of tragedy to add imperative and threat to let us know that while this is a fantasy, it’s not an idealism. There is darkness present, and Abrams and co. make one smart, devastating plot twist that will incite fury in some fans, but will prove essential to the universe’s natural progression in the long-term.

What is curious though, and this is where I contradict myself, is that Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is psychologically complex and morally confused – something at odds with my Star Wars theory – and yet is easily the best thing in the film. He is the inversion of Luke Skywalker, confessing how tempted he is by the seductiveness of the Light, and how desperate he is to renounce himself but he simply can’t. Driver, with his deadpan expressions of exhaustion and turbulence, infuses Ren with so much contempt, petulance and sympathy that he’s beyond compelling. He’s emphatically the best villain in the canon.

Its biggest drawback, however, is the ghost of its legacy; it ostensibly feels obligated to propagate as much fan service as possible, whether in contrived passing references, or in the entire third act. Remaining as spoiler-free as possible, the plot is essentially a slightly tweaked A New Hope, which is incredibly disappointing. This was an opportunity to return to the aesthetics of pure Star Wars while boldly adventuring into new narrative terrain. It is also, fundamentally, shallow. A group of friends get together and stop the vaguely motiveless bad guys, that’s it. There’s essentially nothing beneath the surface. But I’m not a Star Wars fan, and maybe critically exploring the structural dynamics of The Force Awakens is arbitrary. JJ Abrams is a self-confessed Star Wars nut, and this is a film carefully assembled to appeal to Star Wars nuts. It’s built in bricks of nostalgia and devotion, and it succeeds. Pretentious arthouse critics and fifty year old nerds alike are crying their eyes out. If it’s making this many people happy, emotionally fulfilled and united and integrated, is critical appraisal necessary or just superfluous? To put it another way, is The Force Awakens actually a film or a collective caveat, a glorious return to unfiltered escapism for the multitude?

2015 has been a year of global despair and suspicion, but The Force Awakens ends us on a high note. It may not be a great film, but it’s a timely reminder that pop culture, for all its critics, is our one great unifier. Regardless of creed or doctrine, we all share the love of story.

Best Albums & Songs of 2015

ALBUMS

25. No Closer to Heaven – The Wonder Years

Middling Wonder Years No Closer to Heaven may be, but even at their most average they’re more uplifting, raucous and reflective than a dozen other pop-punk bands collectively.

24. Jenny Death – Death Grips

A seamless, immaculately collated fusion of Death Grips’s trademark seething Hip-Hop beats and the novelty of raging Hardcore and Post-Punk descants.

23. The Most Lamentable Tragedy – Titus Andronicus

A '28 song Rock opera' sounds pitifully pretentious, and at times Most Lamentable titters on the edge of kitsch, but when it works it makes you want to punch the air and scream 'FUCK YEAH' like the biggest wanker imaginable.

22. White Men Are Black Men Too – Young Fathers

These Edinburgh, globally inspired Hip-Hop nerds returned with their second LP; cleaner, more refined, but also their most ambitious work to date.

21. Have You in my Wilderness – Julia Holter

Julia Holter shifts from Ambience to Pop in stunning fashion, her graceful harmonies and intricate, elusive lyrics comprise a remarkable entry into the mainstream.

20. I Love You Honeybear – Father John Misty

Easily, and wrongly, discarded as Hipster-Folk, this is intelligently written, beautifully executed Country with a great deal to say.

19. Wildheart – Miguel

R&B's most endearing sexfiend concocts a Pop classic effusing 80s guitars, mellifluous synths and typically gorgeous vocals.

18. Poison Season – Destroyer

Destroyer are notoriously equivocal, drowning in vague, buoyant sentimentality, intangible sadness and interesting instrumentation, and Poison Season is no exception. At times achingly wonderful.

17. No Cities to Love – Sleater Kinney

These Punk goddesses are truly back with a bang; not only one of the most banging records of 2015, but importantly also one of the most fun.

16. Garden of Delete – Oneohtrix Point Never

This is a Goth album in the world of Electronica, which naturally embraces furious synths and violent kickdrums, but also tender vulnerability.

15. Sprinter – Torres

One of a surprising number of female-led Indie-Rock records on this list, Sprinter evinces admirably aggressive Rock bangers supplemented by a claying, heart-felt sincerity.

14. In Colour – Jamie xx

The Deep-House dynamo's debut LP is splendid, bubbling over with unifying Summer anthems and tender chilled Garage.

13. My Love is Cool – Wolf Alice

A concoction of melancholic 90s Alternative sensibilities and an alarmingly life-affirming sentiment, My Love is Cool is a simply divine contradiction to experience.

12. B’lieve I’m Going Down – Kurt Vile

The king of stoner-folk has returned, with an existential meditation as entertaining as it is profound.

11. New Bermuda – Deafhaven

I never considered myself remotely into Metal before Deafhaven’s Sunbather in 2013, and New Bermuda just as good. Intricate, devastating, and at times discordantly beautiful.

10. Divers – Joanna Newsom

Joanna is arguably one of the most brilliant singer-songwriters of her generation, and Divers is conceivably her best work. Pristine arrangements and oblique poetry par for the course.

9. Currents – Tame Impala

The sonic-scapes from Tame Impala’s third album are loud, trippy and honeyed, with some endearing ideas about identity and the complexity of human interaction.

8. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit – Courtney Barnett

Shifting herself up a gear, Barnett swaps stoner Dream-Pop for scintillating Folk-Punk and, well, it's really bloody good.

7. Carrie & Lowell – Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan's dedication to his eponymous parents is lathered in nostalgia, regret, longing, fondness, pain, and it is achingly beautiful.

6. After – Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

An album firing on all cylinders, confronting love both requited and unrequited, heartbreak, socio-economics, and family feuds; it is a palpable, compelling life captured in catchy choruses and pleasing melodies.

5. Summertime 06 – Vince Staples

Another of the 'debut album' crowd, Staple's impeccable flow and sultry beats are only the foundation of an absolutely indignant, terrifyingly pertinent indictment of US policing.

4. Painted Shut – Hop Along

This is Indie Rock at its most earnest, with lo-fi guitars, gloriously flawed vocals, and a breathtaking candour equalled by an incredible songwriting talent.

3. Art Angels – Grimes

Indie darling no more, Grimes brings her earnest Dream-Pop A game so intensively that she harmoniously marries feminist anthems with dancefloor fillers.

2. Harmlessness – The World is a Beautiful Place and I’m No Longer Afraid to Die

It’s easy to forget that Emo stands for Emotion; but these guys don’t. An honestly incredible document about coping with depression and fighting with everything you have to resurface above the vacuum, it tears you down and rebuilds you up again. Awe-inspiring, and in any other year would top everything else.

1.       To Pimp a Butterfly – Kendrick Lamar

But this isn’t any other year. It was never going to be anything else. Nothing comes close. This year, or pretty much any other year. My favourite Hip-Hop album, and easily one of the greatest albums of all-time.

SONGS

50. All Day - Kanye West

49. What Do You Mean - Justin Bieber

48. West Coast - FIDLAR

47. Something - Julien Baker

46. Hey Darling - Sleater Kinney

45. Sunday Candy - Donnie Trumpet

44. Air - Waxahatchee

43. Bank Rolls Remix - Tate Kobang

42. Cops Don't Care Pt. II - Fred Thomas

41. Energy - Drake 

40. Waitress - Hop Along

39. Haircuts for Everybody - The World is a Beautiful Place and I'm No Longer Afraid to Die

38. Can't Keep Checking my Phone - Unknown Mortal Orchestra

37. What's Normal Anyway - Miguel

36. No Shade on the Cross - Sufjan Stevens

35. Here - Alessia

34. Dimed Out - Titus Andronicus

33. Seesaw - Jamie xx

32. Luna - Deafhaven

31. Miniskirt - Braids

30. Yes I'm Changing - Tame Impala

29. Florence - Loyle Carner

28. Dream Lover - Destroyer

27. Sticky Drama - Oneohtrix Point Never

26. Can't Feel my Face - The Weeknd

25. Realiti - Grimes

24. Sprinter - Torres

23. Beyond Alive - Death Grips

22. Go - The Chemical Brothers

21. On the Regular - Shamir

20. Shame - Young Fathers

19. Lisbon - Wolf Alice

18. Regeneration - INHEAVEN

17. Bored in the USA - Father John Misty

16. Time, as a Symptom - Joanna Newsom

15. Pretty Pimpin - Kurt Vile

14. 4 Degrees - Anohni

13. Should Have Known Better - Sufjan Stevens

12. WTF - Missy Elliot

11. Milk Duds - Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

10. Hotline Bling - Drake

9. Well Dressed - Hop Along

8. Norf Norf - Vince Staples

7. Venus Fly - Grimes

6. Downtown - Majical Cloudz

5. Wipe that Shit-Eating Grin Off Your Punchable Face - The Smith Street Band

4. The Blacker the Berry - Kendrick Lamar

3. January 10^th 2014 - The World is a Beautiful Place and I’m No Longer Afraid to Die

2. Pedestrian at Best - Courtney Barnett

1. King Kunta - Kendrick Lamar

My 100 Favourite Films of All-Time #80-71

80. A Clockwork Orange – Stanley Kubrick

I may (greatly) prefer the novel’s ending, but there’s no doubt that the film’s bleakly euphoric conclusion befits the gleeful, exuberant malignance which populates one of Kubrick’s most intensely divisive classics. Whereas Burgess’s text suggested Alex’s mania was based in his adolescence, Kubrick ignores the perverse Bildungsroman subtext in favour of unleashing the id as something intemperate and rampant. McDowell’s Alex is primitive, his sense of modern propriety and decency castrated, but he is just as culpable as his brutally misunderstanding society who try to beat out his bastard. Kubrick takes aim at everyone; Alex, the continuing and antiquated objectivism of mental health treatment, and the viewer’s proclivity for voyeurism; we are, in spite of the inhospitably vile imagery, beguiled. Its final power is in twisting our perception of chronic violence into one of near ambivalence, a thought as horrifying and interesting as Kubrick’s opus itself.

79. A Matter of Life and Death – Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

The genius of Powell and Pressburger’s work is their ability to seamlessly synthesise cinema’s lightness and darkness; the quaintly uplifting Canterbury Tale is deftly populated with some brooding anti-war sentiment, while the intensely psychosexual Black Narcissus avoids utter tragedy through the heartening morality of its heroine. Their finest film is yet to come on this list, but this ardent theme of ambiguity is emphatically portrayed in A Matter of Life and Death. Peter should have died in a plane crash during World War Two, but his body is missed in the English Channel fog by an angel, so he goes on living and falls in love with June. The angel returns to plea for his return to heaven as it’s what is proper, but Peter fights for an appeal for a second chance at life. A courtroom drama of the highest stakes on the highest metaphysical plane, as its semi-pun title infers. Niven is charming, Novak divine, and the entire film is simmering over with wit, imagination and sophistication. However, the possibility that Peter’s visions are disseminated by PTSD and war guilt is subtly embedded into A Matter’s fibre, a real gut punch when it inescapably dawns on you just as everything seems too benign. Not only is it a triumphant romance-fantasy, but a truly harrowing examination of how war portrays life as arbitrary and precipitous to the point of complete futility and maybe insanity.

78. Annie Hall – Woody Allen

It’s widely known that Annie Hall was a rewrite away from being a disaster, such was the mess of Allen’s initial ‘final’ draft. It was dramatically refocussed, the Love and Death sketchy, kaleidoscopic style aborted for a more streamlined love story; that’s not to say Annie Hall’s narrative structure is basic, it’s still chronologically jumbled as Allen jumps from his protagonist’s fondest memories of his relationship with the eponymous Annie to moments of self-loathing and neurotic introspection. It’s not an indictment of the modern relationship, nor is it a celebration. It’s a direct, nuanced exploration of lust, love, loneliness and intimacy that’s almost never been bettered. That’s not to say it isn’t funny – it’s packed full of excellent one-liners ('that’s okay, we can walk to the sidewalk from here') and colourful sight gags – but there’s just so much more to it than pretty much any other rom-com. Naturally, the film is centralised by Diane Keaton’s Annie herself. As intelligent and effervescent as she is insecure and occasionally vain, she is the epicentre, as rounded and wonderful and flawed a person as you’ll encounter in real life. I once read an essay arguing her to be the best character in film history. There are times when I find it difficult to disagree.

77. Sunset Boulevard – Billy Wilder

There is a splendid irony in Hollywood’s exalted hero making the best anti-Hollywood film of all-time, especially one as transparently savage as Sunset Boulevard. Because, truly, this is about as un-subtle as they come. Wilder sublimates a domestic drama with a tsunami of Noir motifs; the drenchly moody cinematography; the wisecracking, retrospective voiceover; and then Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond herself, not so much femme fatale as Queen Fatale. Because, like all Noirs, there is a mystery here, the mystery of meaning. It cannot be overstated how significant her performance is, a send-up of Hollywood’s innate, problematic artifice. Of all the girls from small-town America who dreamed of becoming a star, Norma succeeded, and is still monstrously unhappy and polluted by delusion. The acting is towering, the script tightly wound and searing, the score atmospherically nailed to the mast. The concept of celebrity is the biggest lie in pop-culture, and never has it been as profoundly expressed as it is here. It is a film about the perils of egoism and subsequent madness, pontificating that the greatest ego and madness of all is in fact Hollywood’s.

76. Citizen Kane – Orson Welles

Here it is, the film regarded The Greatest Ever Made by America’s cinema intelligentsia for decade. Hyperbole eternally surrounds Citizen Kane, whether in its institutionalised position in cinematic lore, or in the reactionary opposition to such claims. Trying to come to terms with some objective analysis of its actual quality is like trying to find a piece of hay in a needle stack. Painful. Very painful. But, it is very good. Magnificent even, despite it not being quite my favourite film. Historically, its importance and influence is colossal, especially in its structure, following the life of one man from childhood to death with all his glories and demons in two separate chronological timelines. Welles is oustanding as newspaper magnate Charles Kane, a man whose concurrent economic growth and ethical degradation personified the emergent corporatism of America, while his script is equally strong. Removing it from the context of its colossal legacy, Citizen Kane is exceptionally well-made and edited, even by today’s standards, and boasts one of the most perfect endings in the unveiling of Rosebud.

75. Synecdoche New York – Charlie Kaufman

Pretentious, self-indulgent, affected. These are all words frequently used to describe Kaufman’s directorial debut – after previously penning films for (mostly) Spike Jonze classics such as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation – and they’re all justifiable. Kaufman openly confesses that his work is indulgent and solipsistic, but that shouldn’t take anything away from the film itself. The conceit alone is appallingly ambitious; a disillusioned theatre director attempts an autobiographical play whose dedication to naturalism sees him attempt to construct a to-scale New York and for him to play himself in realtime. It’s metacinema on a whole other plane dealing with love, isolation, death, politics, exuberance and every conceivable important issue in a sad, funny, articulate manner. Its final monologue is true, and hurtful, and inspiring, and simply important. Like Ulysses and Infinite Jest and Waiting for Godot, Synecdoche New York is the peak of postmodernism; frustrating and often impermeable, it’s more than worth the investment when it hits you with something hard and unexpected which no other field of Art could achieve.

74. Mad Max: Fury Road – George Miller

The most recent film on this list, Fury Road is a strange medley of genres. Dystopian Science-Fiction and brutal action film fair enough, but feminist, egalitarian and environmentalist polemic? Feel-good story of one man’s redemption? It’s packed full of surprises; the first, and possibly most significant, is that the protagonist isn’t the title character at all, but Charlize Theron’s enigmatic Furiosa. Her mission, to reach a green place that no longer exists to save the innocence of girls which no longer thrives, is impossible. There are jagged barbs aimed squarely at our own patriarchal arrogance, where our physical earth collapses and our global society becomes more unequal and vindictive, and there is so much layered humanity in here, politics aside, that it’s easily to forget how incomprehensibly exhilarating Fury Road actually is. From the lightning hurricane storm to the canyon finale, this is relentlessly fraught, tense and riveting. It is the only occasion I can think of where the expression ‘breath-taking’ is genuinely apt, and the visuals are apocalyptically lush to boot. In my opinion not so much a feminist film as a humanitarian one, but even when all its plentiful critiques are stripped bare and it’s thematically naked, it’s simply one of the most vigorously exciting action movies ever made.

73. Zodiac – David Fincher

Seemingly lost among the catalogue of serial killer flicks which populated the noughties, it’s possible that Zodiac is one of the most under-appreciated films of recent years. Following three men, their stories naturally intertwined, it follows their collective fanatical need to discover the (real life) identity of San Francisco’s Zodiac killer. Fincher, who’s rarely been as comfortable or confident as he is here, plays on our preoccupation with the macabre. Murder is, as Freud’s Death Wish theory illustrates, endlessly fascinating to us, as it is the forcing of nothingness, a purposeful removal of all existence, a concept so abstract that we determinedly fixate on it because our rational minds refuse to understand. This is a grippingly elusive, impeccably paced mystery, with performances from three effortlessly likable everymen who fruitlessly sacrifice their everyday lives to chase the most crimson of red herrings. This is also opportune to use the old cliché; the city of San Francisco is the real protagonist, its foggy, hazy disposition and architectural verticality purveying a subliminal sense of constant unease. Suspenseful and obsessive, Zodiac is impeccably crafted entertainment – as refined as it is fun – a truly perfect thriller.

72. The Exorcist – William Friedkin

Its special effects may have aged – though not as poorly as you might think – but the ideas in Friedkin’s landmark picture are as distressing as ever. No matter how desensitised we invariably may become, a young girl masturbating with a crucifix while calling cackling maniacally that she’s fucking Christ; will never lose its clout. That’s the lasting effect of The Exorcist, it’s entrenched in repugnant imagery which impishly preys on our societal taboos in ways we don’t expect; while female masturbation is obviously no longer stigmatised, the precepts of highly sexualised pre-teens and Christian figureheads remain as traumatic as it was in the conservative 70s. Max von Sydow and Ellen Burstyn are superb, but Linda Blair never seems to receive the praise she warrants, her wholly convincing panic matched by the hideous malevolence of her possessed state. The film itself is also more complex than credited, concerning itself with religious doubt, sacrifice, faith, and the imperative power of fear and confusion in subtle but effective ways, like the demon mocking Father Damian’s dead mother. After all, the devil’s in the details, and the minutiae contribute to the sensation of something morally essential about The Exorcist, even when detached from a Christian framework. A mesmeric, secular good versus evil parable, that even now chills to the bone.

71. Schindler’s List – Steven Spielberg

Think about the films you’ve seen recently that you feel have mattered, really mattered. 12 Years a Slave maybe? Let’s take 12 Years a Slave; it certainly isn’t flawless when taken empirically, many characters are underdeveloped and the ending feels discordant with the film before it, but its emotional impact is seismic. I’ve, and I’m sure many of you, have rarely experienced anything. It was visceral, open, honest inhumanity, and it was shattering. Schindler’s List is similarly flawed and similarly wrought. Spielberg’s signature sentimentality, omnipresent in his filmography, flirts with offensiveness at times in List, most notoriously captured colouring the girl’s red dress, but he skirts just on the correct side so that the overall effect is unfalteringly devastating. Whether it’s Fiennes sniping concentration camp workers with a calculated apathy, or when the camp showers release water rather than the anticipated gas, the tension is overbearing and the steep indifference hollowing. While this and 12 Years a Slave are just as important as films, this is a much better Film. There’s enough humour, – admissibly limited – warmth and sense of an overall arc here to constitute a viewing which, though never enjoyable, engages you directly with its character so that the full desolation of modern history’s darkest moment feels utterly physical. If 12 Years a Slave is documentarian in its naturalism, then Schindler’s List is conversational in its intimacy between narrative and observer.

Macbeth (2015) Review

Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth feels lived in and brutalised, with its emphasis on authentic Scottish landscapes, muddy costuming and gritty violence. But this isn’t some post-Game of Thrones showpiece jumping on the fantasy sex-and-guts bandwagon, this is confident and impressive filmmaking, and a fantastic homage to The Bard.

Firstly, it’s impeccably acted. Fassbender is incredible. He’s visibly plagued by doubt and desperation, often squinting into nothingness as the witches’ prophecies haunt and entice him. His hollowed look as he dispatches families of potential opponents is one of madness entrenched in humanity. His physical naturalism accentuates the profound internal conflict far more convincingly than Olivier’s melodrama or Patrick Stewart’s overtly bold Thespianism. He’s just remarkable. Lady Macbeth is often described, alongside Anna Karenina, as the ultimate challenge for actresses to confront, and Cotillard nails it. She is nuanced, as vindictive as she is sympathetic. Her final soliloquy confronting the ghost of her baby is utterly heartbreaking. Paddy Considine is wonderfully despairing as Banquo, and Jack Reynor’s Malcolm is fantastically timid as he confronts his father’s murderer, before embracing his regal charisma in his return to his home. The screenplay is excellent, retaining the bulk of the better dialogue and cutting much of the filler, shaping an intrinsically difficult plot easy to follow but maintains that delicate balance between the fantastical and the muddily grounded.

Ecstasy is a hell of a drug.

It’s gorgeously shot, with quaking browns and beautiful greens and vehement reds (especially in the jaw-dropping climax) colliding amidst Shakespeare’s dense dialogue. Equally, the symbolism is constant and intricate, the literal and metaphorical ghosts of children and impotence hanging over the film like a bad smell. Interestingly, Kurzel includes the idea that Lady Macbeth’s malignance and Macbeth’s mental weakness is propagated by a recently dead child; which logically underscores the importance of heirship and legacy which is vaguely alluded to in the original text. It becomes one of the most important themes in the film, though obviously greed, revenge and existentialism are the primary thematic drivers. Fassbender and Cotillard conflate their lusts, both carnal and bloody, twice; but Kurzel intelligently mirrors these moments to illustrate the reversal in their power dynamic. Psychosexuality is entwined in their hunger for authority, and the seducer manipulates the seduced in more than desire. Kurzel’s imagery is often cruel, for instance the burning of Macduff’s family initially appears to be glossed over and ignored for the audience’s sake, a fleeting break from the remorselessness, before Kurzel pans his camera away from the calm sea to the smouldering corpses of innocent children, their ashes crashing into the face of a moribund Cotillard, and Fassbender remains as tranquil and unfettered as the oceans he’s conquered, bathing in the light of his sadism. The film is embedded with incredibly powerful moments like this, including Macbeth’s nihilistic monologue over his dead wife, the delivery of ‘my life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. It means nothing,’-simply one of the most devastating lines in literature,  a genuine punch to the gut. Furthermore the final shot of Fleance running into the red mist, recalling the red curtain-rising opening credits, portrays the persistence of violence and vengeance in this Realpolitik universe. This world is relentless, traumatisingly murky, and wholly unapologetic.

Naturally it isn’t perfect; while Jed Kurzel’s score is effective, it is occasionally overbearing and intrusive in scenes where silence and absence is essential; the gaping vacuity of existence needs to be understated when Macbeth realises the arbitrariness of his genocide. Given the limited running time, it’s perhaps understandable why Macbeth’s capitulation to greed in the opening Act is underdeveloped and rushed, but it feels initially jarring. And the ethicality in transposing a dead child, while I consider it an intriguing narrative prop in context, is questionable, as it categorically shifts Macbeth’s motivation from drowning in greed and vanity to psychosomatic instability from grief.

But these are minor gripes. This is sophisticated, layered and amicably performed. Uncompromising and masterfully accomplished, Kurzel’s Macbeth is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever made.

My 100 Favourite Films of All-Time #90-81

So decided to resurrect this effort after 3 months of doing nothing with it... enjoy.

90. Oldboy – Park Chan Wook

The midsection of Park’s Vengeance Trilogy is embedded in our zeitgeist as a shockingly visceral cult classic, and while the Korean New Wave has produced better films, none have entered the cultural conscience quite like Oh Dae-Su’s relentless pursuit of retribution. Choi Min-Sik’s earthquake of a performance is quixotic, unsettlingly mad, and often overpowering, but far more nuanced than credited. His incontrovertible malice is implored through shrieks of aggression but it’s the wearied stares and grimaces in Oldboy’s quieter moments which unravel an unequivocally nihilistic despair, of a man who’s lost everything and whose only purpose is suffering. Wook intelligently conveys the perverse thrill of highly stylised violence; his concurrent black humour and that hallway fight single-take particularly, but its final half-hour undermines its own mantra, with a jaw-dropping reveal that stretches plausibility but never feels cheap, only gut-wrenching. In the end, even if all you have is suffering to afflict, suffering can still be afflicted. Oldboy is a fascinating contradiction; slick, equable, and entertaining, but uncompromising, subversive, and devastating.

89. When Harry Met Sally – Rob Reiner

A good romantic-comedy is an elaborate concoction, something delicately balanced between kitchen-sink cynicism and idealistic fantasy. A good romantic-comedy understands that there needs to be a darkness, an otherness ineffably centred on loneliness, for it’s only in the bleakest recesses of this natural isolation where love can evolve. Love is an arbitrary human construct, a concept derived from the necessity to define an emotional attachment more profoundly absolute than lust. A good-romantic comedy sells you that love is more than that. That love is neither quantifiable nor qualitative nor physiological. A good romantic-comedy arouses you with the belief that love is omnipotent and omniscient and almighty. When Harry Met Sally is a good romantic-comedy. A very, very good-romantic comedy. In When Harry Met Sally, you believe that love is everything. It is funny, and warm, and real; but above all else, it solidifies our most treasured concept as something definitive, attainable and maybe, just maybe, inevitable.

88. 12 Angry Men – Sidney Lumet

12 Angry Men embodies that most elusive of things; a genuinely perfect slice of cinema. What’s equally impressive is how well it stands up even after Amy Schumer’s outstanding parody for her eponymous sketch show. Henry Fonda’s solitary hero for justice, liberty, equality and other such American jingoisms is triumphant, a potential landmine so easy to overwrite and overplay, but Fonda’s personification is amazingly understated, a restrained yet impassioned mouthpiece for integrity restricted by weariness yet exulted by ardent defiance against the incompetence of self-possession. Fonda’s not alone, with each of the twelve cleanly defined and developed. Each as soulful as they are angry, as good as they are bad. It’s a claustrophobic, unsettling courtroom thriller embedded with dislikeable characters and ethically questionable decisions; far more complex and indeed provocative than its AFI revisionism would have you believe. It’s taut, moving, distressing and endlessly watchable. However, for all its underlying thematic complexity it triumphs most greatly as a basic fable. Like Great Americans Novels such as Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird (more on that later), 12 Angry Men ultimately stands the test of time because of its simple, rigorously fervent, completely true, moralism.

87. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – Andrew Dominik

Sure, its pensive imagery and languorous pacing divided audiences to the extent of its being unfairly discarded as purely a ‘critical darling,’ but its elongated title is its only aspect of pretension. A Western with a brain and a heart, Dominik casts his objective eye over the nefarious outlaw and the circumstances of his infamous murder. He smartly precludes from judgement or indictment, and merely tells its story. Pitt puts in a career-best performance, James’s anti-hero notoriety analogous to the actor’s own public persona, while Casey Affleck – one of our generation’s most under-appreciated actors – betrays a character so slimily malevolent with a strange emulsion of compassion. With a documentarian voiceover establishing its ‘true story’ credentials, coinciding with the naturalistic performances from its impeccable cast, Assassination would appear almost journalistic if it weren’t for its lyrical cinematography. Each shot looks perfectly stressed and placed, stilted in dreamlike browns and yellows, while its effectively minimalistic score accentuates its exhausted, gorgeous melancholy. So transfixed by the powerhouse performances and beautiful framing, you ignore the profundity of James and Ford’s power dynamic, and the film’s ending catches you completely unawares with how goddamn powerful it is. Assassination is truly poetry in motion, except that poem might be a drug-addled, downcast Auden work.

86. The Long Good Friday – John Mackenzie

What’s immediate from the opening of The Long Good Friday, a sprinting credits sequence adorned with Francis Monkman’s iconic saxophone driven score, is its propulsive pacing, and it doesn’t let up for 130 minutes. It’s exhausting watching the underground of mod London collapse into tacit warfare with a unexpected immediacy and urgency. What’s so impressive is how sophisticated it all is, as Mackenzie follows Bob Hoskins’ destruction as closely as those of his lieutenants and footsoldiers. It’s an incredibly layered film, with exquisite detail applied to the most secondary character and most seemingly capricious plot point. It’s a remarkable technical as well as artistic achievement, a masterpiece of screenplay execution, that such an ambitious project is pulled off without an obvious hitch. Helen Mirren is incredible, and incredibly attractive, as Hoskins’s not-so-empty-headed trophy wife, but this is inescapably Hoskins’s film. Simmering with vindictive fury, his Ozymandias of a mob boss is simultaneously terrifying, charismatic and somehow sympathetic, his physical and psychological degradation staggering to behold as his crime kingdom is systematically and emphatically dismantled in front of his eyes. A monolithic depiction of a crumbling empire, The Long Good Friday is without a shadow of a doubt the greatest British gangster film of all-time.

85. Kind Hearts and Coronets – Robert Hamer

Paraphrasing a Tennyson couplet, ‘Kind hearts are more than coronets/And simple faith than Norman blood,’ this Ealing gem does that most British of things; the mutual celebration and lampooning of traditional British values. The plot is essentially rudimentary – the suave working class  Louis, played by Dennis Price, murders the eight highborn relations standing between him and the venerable position of Duke of Chalfont – but there’s so much more here than that premise belies. In framing Britain’s landed aristocracy and all their amicable naivety with Louis’s blue-collar realism, underscores the significance of his conquest. It makes the case both for and against a regimented class system with alarming clarity and wit. But concentrating on its social commentary threatens to discount just how hilarious and clever it is. The dialogue is naturally crackling, the slapstick hits the mark every time, and nonstop subversions of its own concept is amazing. And then of course you have Alec Guiness playing the entire D’Ascoyne family which spans both sexes and three generations, with utter aplomb. One of the strongest cases to be made that Guiness is Britain’s finest ever actor, is right here. Twistedly dark, bleakly funny, and ever so ruddy, bloody, Britishly smart, Kind Hearts and Coronets is deservedly lauded as the crown jewel in the diamond crown of Ealing studies. Although I doubt there’ll be another film anytime soon about a methodical serial killer to receive a U rating.

84. Lilya-4-Ever – Lukas Moodysson

Lilya-4-Ever is a journey into the deepest, darkest recesses of human deplorability. After her mother abandons her to move to the US, the innocent, benevolent Lilya is corrupted by the remorseless inhumanity of the Soviet Union’s human trafficking operation. Lilya is untainted purity, in one of the filthiest orifices in recorded history. Saying any more would ruin its effect, as for all its austerity, it remains a film that is a necessary experience. Mooydsson, following on from his bittersweet dramedy Together, is unflinching in his presentation of Lilya’s unspeakable transformation, from her scrawling hopeful graffiti in her grimy apartment to the film’s traumatic ending. As dark as it is, it’s Moodysson’s eye for the evanescent hopefulness of the human spirit with endures, the idea that deeply heartfelt notion that even at our worst we can persist with the dream of approaching happiness and peace. This is difficult, stressful viewing, but absolutely essential and important, the sickening awakening to what we’re capable of. Think Heart of Darkness with less trippy existentialism, more charcoal black reality.

83. M – Fritz Lang

In the pantheon of great contributors to the evolution of film, alongside the likes of Griffith and Melies, someone rarely mentioned for some inexplicable reason is Fritz Lang. The German director made the first great Science Fiction film in Metropolis and also, quite arguably, the first great thriller in 1931’s M. Peter Lorre, who later became a Hollywood darling in his comic relief roles in Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon due to his distinctive bug-eyes and otherworldly voice, stars as the sinister child-killer who forces the entirety of interwar Berlin on red alert, who is discovered and branded with a bright red ‘M’ to evince his status as a murderer during his chase. Following the accidental prescience of Metropolis’s fascistic dystopia, M portrays a community enraptured in paranoia and terror, as enabled by the predatory newspapers and barely held in check by the self-absorbed local politicians. It’s one of the films where each frame is carefully aligned and portends individual significance, an elaborate, masterful artwork which still holds up today. Its final half hour meditates on capital punishment, justice and the nature of evil in such a sophisticated manner it’s no wonder, if slightly ironic, that Goebbels fell in love with Lang’s work (until he actually understood Metropolis).

82. Raising Arizona – The Coen Brothers

The first of a… fair few Coen brothers films to make the list, Raising Arizona was their first masterpiece, an indestructibly light tale of silliness and family. It’s manic, peculiar and endlessly loveable, and institutes that Coenesque tone of ethereal fairytale-like mythos in an alternate universe to our own. It firmly established the brothers’ skill with creating memorable minor characters; that amazing gas-station vendor for instance, as well as their idiosyncratic camerawork and editing (that amazing zoom-in to Mrs Arizona’s scream). It’s one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen, honestly laugh a minute, but it’s the size of its heart which makes it customary regular viewing. It’s about the most adorable, lovely couple desperate to share their love with a child, and a couple stupid enough to steal one once they realise that their love is too immense to share just between the two of them. It’s about the strength of family, the durability of familial and romantic love, and the joys of parenthood. That ending, where Hi dreams that he and Ed achieve the family they always desired, is possibly the most touching I’ve seen, even ending on a killer gag, and I shed tears everywhere.

81. The Social Network – David Fincher

Trust David Fincher to turn a juicy if unexceptional rise-to-fortune story about a software company into one of the most compelling dramas of the last decade. He does this, ably aided by Aaron Sorkin’s magnificent screenplay, through a dynamic non-chronological narrative structure, razor-sharp dialogue, and flawless presentation. Jesse Eisenberg plays the dickhead genius Zuckerberg to frightening perfection, with Arnie Hammer and Andrew Garfield also giving solid accounts for themselves, but this is really Fincher’s opus. The montage of debauchery in the Harvard fraternity house, the Henley Regatta boatrace to Trent Reznor’s update ‘In The Hall of the Mountain King’, the Scorsese-lite club scene with Timberlake’s sleazy consultant; these are all some of the finest sequences filmed in years. There are precepts of the debilitation of friendship, the corrupting monopoly of corporatism, the rise to prominence of software engineers as the new emperors of entrepreneurship, but above all else The Social Network exists as an enormously entertaining, fiercely intelligent document of one of the most bizarre situations of modern times. Conclusive proof that Fincher is our generation’s Kubrick, the talent whose perfectionism is only matched by his eye for a knockout story.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Ranked

I’ve finally seen Antman, which means that the ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two’ has officially concluded, because the world obviously revolves around me. Now that we’ve got a break from the MCU until next May when Captain America: Civil War is released, I thought now would be a great time to synthesise my enjoyment of and fascination with this super-sized chunk of our zeitgeist with my obsession with lists. I’ll leave my fixation with the rapid conventionalisation of Superhero blockbusters to one side, and ignore my preoccupation with the implications of what a Marvel vs. DC universe means for the rest of popcorn cinema, and concentrate directly on ranking the MCU’s current selection purely by their quality (in my opinion).

12. The Incredible Hulk

The film most loosely associated with the MCU – due to, among other things, Edward Norton’s Hulk being replaced by Mark Ruffalo from The Avengers onwards –is also the weakest. There’s nothing especially bad about The Incredible Hulk, there’s just nothing interesting about it. Norton’s fine, but the plot just happens, as do the explosions and the romance. It is the routine origin story everyone’s seen a million times before While Iron Man instilled some enthusiasm and novelty into the Superhero movie, this, released at the same time, was emblematic of how stale the genre had become. It’s so derivative that it almost defies qualification. It just happened.

11. Thor: The Dark World

It is widely agreed that Marvel’s two biggest continuing problems are the depth of their villains, and the banality of their third act cities-attacked-from-the-sky finales. The Dark World is probably the most salient example of both of these. Malekith is stubbornly dry, gratuitously evil, and irredeemably boring, and is in some ways symptomatic of the film itself. Okay, that’s harsh, but this is offshoot stuff. The Asgardian politics is a weak retread of the first film’s, (Loki angst again?) the plot transparently and annoyingly nonsensical – and worse, poorly paced – and the third act showdown is, as mentioned previously immensely uninspired. There are a few witty flourishes and a few spectacular set-pieces, but this was a misstep. Still, like all MCU films, watchable, but a misstep nonetheless.

10. Iron Man 2

Again, the plot doesn’t make much sense, and it’s, bizarrely, much more serious than the first one,but there’s a lot to like in Iron Man 2. While the humour is significantly missed, and the sequel-goes-darker thing is so painfully trite, but Stark’s perpetual crisis of character is at its most poignant here, as he directly confronts his demons from the first film, and it hits home. There’s also a real fraught tension, that there’s stakes on the line here, that Mickey Rourke’s Vanko might actually kill our loveable narcissist. Above all else, it was the first MCU film to seriously suggest the potential ubiquity of this cosmos, with its Black Widow appearance and Avengers initiative intimations.

9. Thor

Branagh’s decision to play up the source material’s inescapable camp – displacing the Norse God and all his overbearing melodrama in a kitchen-sink, naturalistic setting – was intelligent. Not only does it pay off as very funny, but it also paints the concept’s fundamental ridiculousness as congruent. It’s strangely small, with most of the Earth scenes taking place in what is essentially a desert, and there sadly never exists the suspense which compels some of the other franchise exports, but the Asgardian family soap-opera is scintillating, with Hiddlestone’s Loki obviously stealing the show both comically and dramatically, and it all feels like it collectively works, which from an objective standpoint is remarkable. Above all else, it’s just enormous fun.

8. Antman

There are a lot parallels between Thor and Antman; the most blatant being their conceptual absurdity, but also in their slightness. They feel removed from the colossal warfare of their (particularly phase 2) equivalents, to the point where they feel like completely separate genres. While Thor felt like post-modern Shakespeare, Antman is ostensibly a heist-comedy. Like Thor, the fact it pulls off the whole tiny superhero ludicrousness is laudable, thanks largely to its self-awareness, but also to Paul Rudd’s gritty everyman quality. His character is manifestly dissimilar to his Greek God-like colleagues, but his weariness and understated comic value transform him into one of the universe’s most charismatic protagonists. While very funny, perhaps Antman’s greatest, and most unexpected, virtue is its emotional heft, as both father-daughter dynamics are sincerely moving.

7. Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 isn’t perfect. I think its third act is utterly abysmal for instance; from that twist onwards, it basically goes spiralling downhill. But until that point, it’s Marvel at its finest. It felt like it a continuation of The Avengers (where Marvel finally nailed the synergy of comedy, drama and action) with Stark returning to his barbed one-liners and screwball face-pulls of the first film, while reinforcing the sense of deteriorating psychosis and manic tension of the second, while providing some incredible sequences. The terrorism subtext was immensely unsettling, and there’s a real sense of dread and black humour saturating every frame. It’s the darkest MCU film, and, having spent four films investing in this fascinating character, it’s often breathtaking in its ambition. It’s just a real shame about the last half hour. Which is dreadful.

6. Captain America: The First Avenger

On first viewing I was fairly underwhelmed by The First Avenger. But on second viewing I realised that it’s not a superhero film at all. It’s an entertaining man-on-a-mission film with some, and really unanticipated, thematic weight. Captain America is, from a superficial perspective, the most boring Avenger. He appears to be a two-dimensional symbol of American expansionism and jingoism, but Chris Evans injects proper substance into him (as well proper steroids). There’s so much heart to Steve that he’s indefatigably charming, as is Hugo Weaving’s oldschool Red Skull. In fact the whole film feels an endearing blend of old Hollywood action flicks in the vein of The Great Escape with its lighthearted machismo, and the modern blockbuster with its emphasis on bombast. There’s also an authentic confrontation with the horrors of war here that perfectly contrasts with Evans’s exuberant naivety. It’s modest, but surprisingly powerful. Also, the best ending of the franchise. By far.

5. Avengers: Age of Ultron

I loved Age of Ultron. I agree it is flawed; it is overstuffed with too many subplots and characters to the point where actually significant idiosyncratic narratives are almost redundant – Thor’s especially – but the fact that Whedon managed to balance everything without it completely collapsing in on itself is a staggering achievement. On a purely structural basis, it’s one of the biggest films ever made, but Whedon gives each of the (many, many) characters space to breath and develop. The main plot is actually interesting (the insipid the-greatest-monster-is-man conjecture notwithstanding) Furthermore, I think that Loki (obviously) aside, Spader’s Ultron is Marvel’s best villain; it’s believably sociopathic yet magnetic, complex and driven. Ultron’s also, by some distance, the MCU film which provides the greatest sense of mortal anxiety. Whedon foreshadows someone’s death in spades throughout, so that the finale is authentically nail-biting, not to mention jaw-droppingly outstanding. Try biting your nails with your jaw dropped. It’s hard. Not as operationally cohesive as The Avengers, but still immensely rewarding. I’m just happy to see these characters together. To steal from critic Helen O’Hara, I’d happily watch a 2 hour film of them hosting a dinner party.

4. Iron Man

The shot of adrenaline which Superheroes needed, Iron Man remains one of the MCU’s most original (for the time) and entertaining outputs, and probably remains its most interesting. Yes, Iron Man should be applauded for being hilarious, vibrantly fresh, and for establishing the pseudo-realistic tone which has served the MCU so successfully. But it should also be applauded for being a legitimately great character study. Tony Stark’s journey from conceited playboy to altruistic-but-troubled antihero is nuanced, convincing and affecting. Much of that is inevitably down to Robert Downey Jr’s wonderful portrayal of Stark, this being the role which catapulted him back into the cultural consciousness. There is a lot going on behind the scenes in Iron Man, the morality of Westernising the Middle-East, but there’s so much colour on screen you really don’t have to care.

3. Captain America: Winter Soldier

Winter Soldier feel more like a Bourne film than an MCU film, with its emphasis on political intrigue and elaborate treacheries, and brutal, claustrophobic action, but it works bloody well. In a way it cements Cap’s aesthetic as the most realistic of the individual threads, with its emphasis on the difficulty of nationalism and corporate shadiness displacing aliens and crippling self-consciousness. Cap’s still Private Patriot and Major Morality, but this is turned into his own compelling character flaw. He contrasts with the nation he supposedly represents, one motivated by Imperialistic tenacity and security paranoia. The fight scenes are all debilitating, awe-inspiring shaky-cam, intensifying the sense of momentum and importance to the mission, while Cap's quieter moments with Black Widow and Falcon are honestly very sweet. It could have been even further up the list if it had stuck to its guns as a Cold War-esque conspiracy thriller, rather than regressing into the deja vu sky-attack showdown. Winter Soldier is by turns exhilarating, bravely thought-provoking, and occasionally heartfelt. The first truly great, five-star standalone MCU film.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy

I saw somewhere call Guardians of the Galaxy analogous to the incalculably iconic escapist adventure that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings was to previous generations, and I think I agree. The central strength of Guardians is that, both with myself and with most people discuss it with, it’s practically impossible to choose a favourite character. Whether it’s Starlord’s charisma, Gamora’s no-nonsenseness, Rocket’s snarkiness,  Groot’s one-liner (see what I did there), or Drax’s wonderful, wonderful literalism, these are a group of rag-tag miscreants you actually love and care about. The action scenes are clever and thrilling, the world itself is well-realised, it’s at times deeply heart-breaking, and it’s definitively the funniest MCU film. And, of course, what a soundtrack. There’s nothing really below the surface but who cares when you’re spending your two hours swamped in delight and whimsy and excitement and charm. Simply one of the most purely enjoyable blockbusters ever made.

1    1. The Avengers

I wasn’t really into the MCU before The Avengers came out in 2012, and even then I went to see it because I creepily lionise Joss Whedon more than anything else. It honestly blew me away. It was profoundly entertaining. Whether it was the gargantuan set-pieces, or the intricate subtleties to the character dynamics, it was cinematic joy. It felt both huge in scope and ambition, yet retained the decisive attention to detail in its character and plot development. There was a calculated sense of urgency and tension, but also an unbridled appreciation for fun. Nowhere is this better embodied than in the two-scene intercut of Captain America desperately defending a host of women and children, while the Hulk tosses about a Norse god like a ragdoll. It flicked between grandstanding awe and magical entertainment with a momentary edit. The Avengers tied everything together and completely immersed you in its world. It was action, comedy and drama perfected. It finished Phase One, and announced with an emphatic roar that the MCU will be one of the major historical landmarks of modern cinema. For me, it stands up there with Jaws, Back to the Future, The Dark Knight, Jurassic Park, Aliens and Raiders of the Lost Ark, as one of the truly brilliant Summer Blockbusters.